Delinquent D-link

Posted on April 8, 2006

D-link makes crappy network equipment and you should stay away from it if
your IP connectivity is important to
you. D-link also hire idiots to code their firmware, idiots that hardcode
all the stratum 1 NTP servers in
their firmware.

Therefore a lot of D-link equipment is sold misconfigured to ask stratum
1 servers for time by default, collectively sending about 2000 packets per
second to all stratum 1 servers in their little list of targets. It can
only be characterized as a DDoS of critical internet
infrastructure.

Poul-Henning Kamp is the owner and operator
of the stratum 1NTP server gps.dix.dk. D-links
incompetence has cost Poul-Henning pretty serious money, and the only
contact he's had with D-link is a lawyer who's alternating between threats
and trying to bribe him.

Since D-link now seems to be both incompetents and actively evil
Poul-Henning decided to go public with it:

This is the tragedy of the
commons all over again, and I fear D-link is too stupid to treat it as
a technical problem. Instead they will let their propaganda department
(aka. public relations) and legal
department handle it, leaving their equipment still misconfigured by
default, DDoS-ing stratum
1 NTP servers on their dirty
little list.